Continuous Melt Spinning of Adaptable Covalently Cross‐Linked Self‐Healing Ionogel Fibers for Multi‐Functional Ionotronics

Abstract

Stretchable conductive fibers play key roles in electronic textiles, which have substantial improvements in terms of flexibility, breathability, and comfort. Compared to most existing electron‐conductive fibers, ion‐conductive fibers are usually soft, stretchable, and transparent, leading to increasing attention. However, the integration of desirable functions including high transparency, stretchability, conductivity, solvent resistance, self‐healing ability, processability, and recyclability remains a challenge to be addressed. Herein, a new molecular strategy based on dynamic covalent cross‐linking networks is developed to enable continuous melt spinning of the ionogel fiber with the aforementioned properties. As a proof of concept, adaptable covalently cross‐linked ionogel fibers based on dimethylglyoximeurethane (DOU) groups (DOU‐IG fiber) are prepared. The resultant DOU‐IG fiber exhibited high transparency (>93%), tensile strength (0.76 MPa), stretchability (784%), and solvent resistance. Owing to the dynamic of DOU groups, the DOU‐IG fiber shows high healing performance using near‐infrared light. Taking advantage of DOU‐IG fibers, multifunctional ionotronics with the integration of several desirable functionalities including sensor, triboelectric nanogenerator, and electroluminescent display are fabricated and used for motion monitoring, energy harvesting, and human–machine interaction. It is believed that these DOU‐IG fibers are promising for fabricating the next generation of electronic textiles and other wearable electronics.